


i won't fight you

by memesofbees



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Worth, venting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-26 21:38:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9923135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/memesofbees/pseuds/memesofbees
Summary: Lance… Lance noticed. It was little things, it was Hunk and Pidge trying to take the bulk of group projects they were paired up in, it was the hand that stayed up in the air after he was called on, anticipating his wrong answer. Iverson constantly comparing him to Keith, even after he was kicked out because Iverson told him Shiro was dead and he punched him in the face, giving him his permanent swollen eye (Which he fucking deserved, thank you, Keith).✦Lance deals with some shit.





	

**Author's Note:**

> just my thoughts and feelings
> 
> Title's a lyric from Afraid by the Neighborhood because it came on my Spotify and felt right

Call him petty if you want. He was used to it by now. Call him self-centered, call him narcissistic, call him the comedic relief, the funny guy all you want because, guess what, he’s _used to it._

Lance… Lance noticed. It was little things, it was Hunk and Pidge trying to take the bulk of group projects they were paired up in, it was the hand that stayed up in the air after he was called on, anticipating his wrong answer. Iverson constantly comparing him to Keith, even after he was kicked out because Iverson told him Shiro was dead and he punched him in the face, giving him his permanent swollen eye (Which he fucking _deserved,_ thank you, Keith).

Wow, we’re starting off real nicely here aren’t we?

Really, though. He’d noticed before but kind of learned to brush it off. His friends still loved him, it was really no biggie. And even if it was, it was his job to make people feel better, not bring them down. Why the heck would he talk about his own problems?

~~Who would listen? Who would care?~~

The first time he truly noticed, it was, okay, _kind of_ petty. _Pero,_ just listen.

They were in the workshop, Pidge nestled in a nest of computers and wires in her designated spot on the floor, Hunk sitting across from Lance while tinkering with one of Coran’s port screens. Lance was mocking up some blueprints for double pistols to have alongside his bayard for quick shot offs.

Hunk put down his pliers and frowned, “Hey,” Lance looked up, but Hunk was flagging down Pidge behind him, “Pidge. Hey! Holt!”

She made a noncommittal noise and took off her headphones, “What?”

“I forgot, is it the clear or the blue chamber that’s supposed to be connected with the quintessence battery?”

Pidge hummed, thinking. Lance rose an eyebrow, waited a beat before saying, “It’s the clear one. Helps identify if the power’s running out or not, yeah?”

Hunk ‘ah’-ed, going back to work, “Right, right. Thanks, man.”

“Anytime, buddy,” Lance nodded, spreading all his ideas out on the table and rising up the holograms, stilling. He swallowed, an unsteady feeling in his stomach. He was… sitting right here. Pidge was—

_You’re overreacting. Chill._

Yeah. Yeah, this was stupid.

He brought forward Number 2, adjusting the brightness and ultimately sending it to drafts. The handles were too bulky, easily noticeable. Maybe the barrels of that one with the handles of Number 3, if the parts were compatible.

“Pidge, wait,” Hunk waved a hand, not even looking this time, “the chambers aren’t supposed to both be running on the purple wire?”

Pidge was back at her headphones, Lance could hear Coran’s classical music (“Didn’t know you went hard.”) from there. He gulped, “Uh, no. The purple’s supposed to transfer the quintessence, so it’s only going to be attached to the clear one.”

“Oh,” he stuck his tongue between his teeth, giving a thumbs up, “got you.”

Lance sat back, tapping a nervous rhythm on the table, “Dude, why don’t you just ask me? I was there for the briefing Allura gave us on the tech too, y’know.” He tacked on a rickety laugh at the end, just to make it sound like a joke.

Hunk looked back at him, cheeks going dark, “Oh, dude, sorry! I didn’t know if—“

“No, it’s,” Lance flapped a hand around, smiling, “it’s fine _._ I was just saying. Like, in case Pidge doesn’t know or anything again. I’m right here.” He tried to keep that note of desperation out of his voice, still going for light and airy. This wasn’t the first time he was ignored in favor of somebody else’s opinion. He never really said anything, but this dug at him for some reason. Cemented the dread building in his bones.

_I’m right here._

Hunk doesn’t ask him next time. Lance doesn’t answer him.

He closed and saved his program, pointing double pistols at them as he walks through the door, “I’m gonna go take a shower. Good luck, nerds.”

Pidge stuck her tongue out as the doors closed.

The smile he’d plastered on slowly faded as he walked, jamming his hands loosely in his pockets. He moved his feet to the beat of some song he couldn’t remember snippets of lyrics to, trying to block out all the water filling up his skull. His brain was drowning in self-doubt.

Lance was smart. Not intelligent, not superbly gifted. He was smart. Enough to be accepted into the Garrison, enough to be a cargo pilot in the same core classes as an engineer and a technician.

It was funky though. He floated in this space of being just smart enough for those classes and pass with mediocre grades, but regular ones were… almost too easy. He never the same flow and dance as Hunk and Pidge when it came to their grades.

And now, surrounded by all these other… he wasn’t enough.

He didn’t feel like he was enough.

What’s worse:

(A.) The fact that he felt like crying or

(B.) The feeling of tears pushing at the backs of his eyes was not only not new, but familiar?

He hiked up his sleeve, rubbing roughly at his eye. His shoulder bumped something and he muttered on apology on instinct, freezing when, “Lance?”

_Straighten up, take a breath, and if your voice cracks, you have permission to launch yourself directly into space._

Lance drew back his shoulders, settling on a neutral expression and turning on his heel, “Yeah?”

“You okay?” Keith had sweat stains at the collar of his shirt, jacket slung over his shoulder with two fingers, hair up in a messy ponytail, all signs of coming back from sparring. His eyes were bright. Tired, but bright.

It took Lance a second to formulate an answer, mind even more skewed to hell, “Dude, of course. Why wouldn’t I be? I mean, I skipped a facial last night, but it’s ‘cause I’m running out of the—“

“Your eyes are red,” he interrupted (rudely) flatly, motioning with his chin, “and I heard you make a noise back there.”

“Humming? Breathing? I’m _walking_ , jeez,” he put both hands up, snickering, “sue me.”

Keith rose a perfect eyebrow, though Lance could bet he’d never had to get them done, “Seriously?”

“There anybody more serious than me on this castle?” He gave a lopsided smile. It blocked the golf ball of sobs choking his airway. Keith seemed ready to continue the conversation, every time they made any kind of contact like striking a match. They couldn’t just _not_ engage.

Lance shrugged, starting back on his way, “Whatever. Go hit the showers, I could probably smell you through the walls like that.”

 

He woke with his heart hammering his ribs to oblivion. Lance sat straight up, clutching a hand to his chest, just to make sure it was still there.

Every breath of air felt like a tidal wave in his lungs. He collapsed forward, head in his hands, scrubbing them through his hair before pressings the heels of both into his eyes.

 _“You didn’t_ really _think_ you _could be a paladin, did you?”_

Lance choked on a sob, heaving into his arms. He ripped the blankets off, grabbing his jacket off the wall.

The hallway was deathly still, and he stumbled a bit, crashing into the wall. The dream was still fresh.

Shiro was still telling him how worthless he was. Hunk was laughing at something the faceless guy in ~~the blue pa~~ his armor had said, the group of them walking back their lions. ~~His lion.~~

Pidge elbowed him in the ribs, still snorting, and Keith leaned back against the arm around his shoulders, smiling easy, and the _look in his eyes—_

Not enough. This room, this _castle_ didn’t have enough oxygen right now.

His heartbeat was so loud in his ears.

“Lance?” A voice he never thought he’d hear sleep-thickened and rough. Concerned.

Lance didn’t turn to look, didn’t think everything compounded together would sit well with him. He braced himself with a hand on the wall, just now realizing it was the one right beside Keith’s door, “’M f-fine. Go back to sleep.”

So loud, Keith wasn’t behind him until the hesitant hand on his shoulder brought him back. He almost broke down, almost gave in to the warmth that flooded him and—

And what?

God _, what?_

He flinched away. Then took off running.

 

Even if Keith did follow, Lance couldn’t tell. He barreled into the hangar. Blue didn’t even have time to accept him in, give him the traditional greeting of a psychic high five before he was in the cockpit.

“Let’s go,” he pushed at the controls, “c’mon.”

Blue obliged, sending a warmth like worry down his back. His shoulders started to shake. She manifested as a presence by his side, holding his hand.

They stopped suddenly, floating a few hundred yards from the castle. Lance was crying, bringing his legs up and wrapping his arms around them, burying his head into his knees.

**Lance…**

“Why did you choose me?” He couldn’t breathe, “Keith was—Keith was right there. Everybody was there, I’m just—Why would you—“

**Keith’s an asshole. And you were calling me.**

“I’m nothing, Blue. There’s nothing—“

She made him shut up, **I chose you, Lance. Are you saying I made a mistake?**

"Yes." And he believed it. Hearing it out loud, admitting it, he truly thought whoever had replaced him in his dream would be a better fit than him in Voltron.

Blue felt taken aback, the feeling of the hand in his clench. He kept his eyes shut tight. She knew enough to let him stay there, comforting him simply with her presence. 

After a while,  **Want to go back?**

He shook his head, pulling his jacket tighter around him. "No." _Please._

Eventually all the thoughts in his head were so muddled and messy they fogged over. He sank into his seat, a red blur coming over his view of space. Blue moved around him.

 

Feeling of walking without his legs, bumping up and down. He huddled closer to the warmth in his side, burying his face in the soft material. A shirt, his sheets, maybe. The light pushing at his eyelids dimmed.

A bed sunk under his weight. He made a noise of discomfort at the cold of it, reaching for whatever was putting him down. 

_No. Don't leave._

 

_A brush to his bangs. A kiss to the crown of his head._

 

"I'd been looking for an entrance to the kitchens for _months_ ," Lance squawked, leaning across the table to point at Keith with his fork, "how? Who did you have on the inside? Who's dick—“

"Do _not_ ," Shiro warned from a seat away, "finish that sentence."

Keith had a carefully straight face on, shrugging, "Shiro gave me a key and told me I could use it if I ever found a way in. So I stayed up one night and went to his bunk wing, found him and Matt Holt coming back from them with their pants full of," Shiro attempted to cover Keith's mouth, but he pulled away, saying it louder, "the _good_ chocolate chip cookies."

Lance and Hunk gasped. He slammed a hand down on the table, "Was that the Great February Shortage? _Shiro—“_

"It was Matt's idea!" He said quickly, shooting a look at Keith, who popped a berry nonchanantly into his mouth, chewing around a smirk, "He wanted to send some to his family, and we thought, 'Why not—'"

"There were _wars_ ," Hunk exclaimed, haunted. Lance shivered. "People would trample eachother. I once saw Quinta stab Renee in the leg with a spork to grab the last decent cookie. We were the last lunch period, man. You didn't _see—“_

Pidge nodded slowly, "Yeah... Matt had sent us a box full of them."

"We were _cheated_ ," Hunk whispered.

"I was younger. I didn't think of the consequences."

Keith snorted, "This was two years—“

"We gave you a cut of the loot to keep you from snitching, so you don't get to judge."

Lance crossed his arms, falling back in his seat, "Heathens. Heathens the _both_ of you."

Hunk copied his motion, throwing his nose in the air, "Brothers in _deed_."

They harrumphed in unison.

Lance had woken up disoriented in his room, settling on the fact that he had somehow made his way back in the night. He'd rubbed some of a new face mask on to do away with the puffy redness around his eyes and flicked through his tablet for a bit, settling down. Organizing himself.

"Oh, no, Keith," he muttered to himself, shoving an arm through his rumpled jacket, "that must've been a dream. Me? I slept like a _baby._ "

But Keith didn't say anything, in a heated debate with Hunk about what motor was faster for a bike like his when Lance came in for breakfast. He served himself and sat next to Hunk, glancing at Keith every so often, finding a matching look shot at him most times.

Eventually Shiro showed up, and they landed themselves in the conversation they were having now.

And it was all fine and dandy until the alarms started going off, of course. Because they couldn't have an entire minute to chill. Chairs scraped in a cacophony of frustrated groans. Allura's voice rang through the speakers, "Paladins to the control room. We're recieving a distress call from a nearby planet and must plan accordingly."

He grumbled, following everybody to the changing rooms and hurriedly pulling on his suit. 

"Could it be another trap?" Pidge wondered aloud, emerging from the bathroom with her clothes over her arm. She dumped them in the corner, scowling. 

"Dunno. Wouldn't Allura scan the encryption to make sure it wasn't sent from a malignant source?" Lance answered.

Hunk hummed, "Maybe? Would that work?"

"If it's a direct..." Hunk turned to Pidge, continuing the conversation between themselves. Lance trailed off, zipping up his boot. 

Right.

Right.

He was one of the last out, struggling to fasten on his chest plate after it was hit on the last mission, warping the catch. Keith finally came up behind him and swatted his hands away, taking it on himself. Lance didn't need to look at him to feel the sheer _confrontation_ radiating off his body.

Which was ironic, since Keith had full tilt _sprinted_  away when they tried to tell him to stop hogging all the towels.

But smooth, mullet. Real smooth. Lance crossed his arms, ducking his head and scuffing his toe along the floor. Tapped his fingers on his arm. 

There was the satisfying click and Lance took not half a step forward before Keith grabbed him by the neck of his suit, pulling him back so they were eye to eye. Keith's gaze flickered over his face, focusing momentarily, their usual storm of grey. He slowly slid his eyes back to Lance's, narrowing.

Lance tried for humor, stumbling to stand up straight, "Y'know, Keith, if you wanted to get me alone—"

"What the hell was that last night, Lance?" Wow, okay, no time even for banter. Lance blinked. Keith was pinning him, moving in front of the exit not-so-subtly. 

He opened and closed his mouth, finally settling, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Cut the shit. We don't have time for this."

"You're right," Lance agreed happily, walking jauntily forward, "then we should probs be getting back to the others—"

An arm across his chest, shoving him roughly back. The hand connected to it stayed in place. Keith was not a foot away, something like...

Like...

_Worry. Like worry, or sadness, or from his dream—_

_Or pity. It could be pity._

Lance summoned up all his strength, setting his jaw, "You said, we don't have _time."_

"I meant for excuses. There's always time for you, Lance."

He scoffed, ignoring the weight behind the words like the plague, "What? Because you had some weird dream about me last night?"

Keith leaned back, jutting a thumb over his shoulder, "I carried you back to your room. Red and I towed you and Blue back to the hangars and you'd fallen asleep so I carried you back. Red said something was wrong with you, but Blue had no place to say what.

"So what?"

"You're worse than Hunk, you know that?"

" _Lance—"_

" _All_ paladins to the control room. Lance, Keith, break it up, we don't have time for this," Shiro sounded exhasperated, like he was rubbing a hand down his face.

Lance smirked without satisfaction, sidestepping Keith with a single finger gun, "No time, now. Schedule an appointment with Dr. Love later, please and thanks."

 

Shiro took Pidge out of his arms and Lance whirled in Green's cockpit, "What are you—"

"We need to get her to a healing pod _now_. Go—"

"No," he said, more a shout than anything, "no, she's _my_ friend."

"We're a _team,_ Lance—"

"Like _hell,"_ he almost shouted, just so the next galaxy over couldn't hear him, trailing after Shiro, keeping on eye on Pidge. The dark spot where the blasthad hit her shoulder was growing, smudging her armor red. The shattered remains of her visor twinkled on the ground as she groaned. He'd been in the process of trying to brush it away.

Shiro carefully put her down on the gurney Coran brought, turning toward him shakily. He was pale, but his eyes were trying their best to look stern, "Lance, what are you talking about?"

He grit his teeth, pushing his words through the gaps, throwing an arm in Pidge's direction, "I _told_ you guys to check the comm. If we had just— You never _listen—_ "

"Pidge was just seriously injured—"

"—and now's not the time," Lance finished for him. He clenched his hands, the feeling of Pidge's blood slowly drying on his gloves leaving him hollow. "Yeah. You're... Nothing's broken, I don't think. I didn't— she could have a concussion."

Hunk came out of Yellow, running for the gurney. Lance went with him, not quite hearing what Shiro's response was. He put a hand over Hunk's on Pidge's, pushing the gurney along for Coran. He prepared one of the pods, Pidge struggling to keep her eyes closed.

He heard the slight chatter of Shiro briefing Allura on the situation, the screamed request for a wormhole not quite enough of an explination, obviously. Lance blocked that side of the room out, focusing on Pidge, willing himself to not think that this could be prevented. It happened.

There was nothing they could do now.

"Is she," Keith's voice was out of breath, not to the point of frantic quite yet, "is she okay? I took out the guy that got her."

 _Doesn't matter,_  Lance was tempted to say, but nodded instead. The pod opened with a hiss and they lowered Pidge upright, leaning her on the back. She took a breath as they closed. Her eyelashes stopped midflutter.

Hunk stifled a cry, messily snorting. Lance squeezed his hand once and let it drop.

 

 

He sat under the pool, elbows leaning on his knees, hands sagged between his legs. The water threw swirling shadows over him, all across the floor. 

This felt like his fault, somehow. Like is he had been louder (ha!), more insistent Pidge wouldn't be...

Fuck. Shit.

His shoulders fell. He stared down at his fingers, trying to drive away the scooped-out feeling in his skin. 

And of course he expected it. Keith wasn't as stealthy as he believed himself to be. Lance heard his footsteps on his way here. But it was the softness.

The look in his dream.

"Lance?"

Lance snapped his head up. Keith had a tentative hand out, curled in. All soft, all care. Hair falling over his face.

"Are you okay?"

He laughed weakly, the first pricks of tears stabbing at his eyes, "What? Yeah, of course I am! I thought we went over this! I just..." They spilled, bubbled over. He quickly drove himself to stare forward, roughly wiping them away as they came.

He sobbed and hated every moment of it.

God. God, he was just so damn _useless._

"I'm useless," he heard himself whisper, hiccuping.

Keith's hand on his shoulder was dreamily familiar, like a shadowed hallway, the first time he realized he was developing a crush on a guy with a _mullet_ of all things, dazed from being slammed into a wall.

"No you're not."

Lance shook his head.

Keith sat next to him, pressing to his side. He kept himself still. Waiting. 

He didn't keep him long.

He leaned into the hand, completely falling into Keith's chest. He was sobbing freely now, wrapping both arms to keep Keith there, to have that familiar warmth back in his bones.

Keith hugged him back around his shoulders, mouth pressed to his temple, "You're not, Lance. You're important. You're so important."

"Then why," he couldn't, "why am I not _enough._ Why doesn't anybody _listen to me._ " Lance wanted to pull back, look him in the face, but felt too weak to do it.

"I'm just as c-capable. I t-try. I try so hard—"

"You don't have to try," every word a kiss in his hair, the hold on his shoulders tightening, "you're _enough,_ Lance. Blue chose you. She chose you because you're kind, you're our team's positivity."

"I'm a _joke_."

They were still chest to chest when Keith forced his chin up. His bottom lip was wobbling, and he was sure his cheeks were a mess of blotchy tears.

But, _Christ,_ the look Keith was giving him.

This _world_ _._ This _universe._

Lance's throat seized. Keith was breathing hard and Lance realized belatedly he was almost crying himself.

"You're _everything,_ Lance," he murmured, two fingers from the hand holding his face up slipping into his hair, "you're the moon and stars."

The words sank so heavily into him. They hit him hard enough to bruise, to scar, to completely destroy.

 

He can't remember telling Keith to take him to his room.

Not for the life of him.

 

They helped each other out of their armor. That stupid ass catch again; Keith cursed lowly and Lance actually smiled. He shucked his suit into the laundry chute, dunking Keith's in after it.

It was really nothing. It was almost nothing.

Lance'd seen him in a bathing suit before, and it's not like the spacesuits left much to the imagination. But he could...

He crossed the room in two strides, relishing in Keith's slight 'oof' when he knocked them back on the bed. He let Keith arranged them so they were on their sides, forehead to forehead.

So, okay, let's pretend Keith totally did not just confess to him. Let's pretend cuddling half-naked with your sworn rival after sobbing into his shoulder is completely normal.

Keith brushed the hair curling around his ears behind them. Lance ran his hands up and down Keith's sides.

"It was Iverson, wasn't it?"

"Some..."

"Always hated him. Shiro said he replaced the sugar in the lounge with salt and Iverson still drank his coffee like that. Straight."

"Yeesh. Knew that guy wasn't human."

"You have something against aliens?"

"Consider," he poked Keith's hip, "the fact that I'm in bed with one."

"I still don't get why you hate Texas so much."

"Ya'll're—"

"Stop. Don't do this."

He hummed.

"This is what happens when I try to help." It was all teasing, his eyes dancing a slow waltz, "I get ridiculed."

Lance nodded, their noses smushing together, "I should probably try making up for that, huh?"

"That's not going to help you."

"Yeah," and Lance kissed him.

The angle was weird for a second. Their top teeth bumped until Keith rolled on top of him, given the advatage of tilting his head. His nose brushed under Lance's eye. Their eyelashes tangled.

And, for the first time in too long, Lance felt like himself. He felt listened to, even though he wasn't talking, Keith responding to the hands on his ribs by twining their hands together over his skin.

 

"You're not useless. You're not a joke.

"You're important. You're enough. You're everything the world needs because you are still here, and if the world didn't need you, it would chew you up and spit you back out until you were something it could use.

"You're a hero. You're the stars and the moon and the galaxies and the seas.

"You're everything.

"You're perfect."

**Author's Note:**

> i'm revising these notes as of 3/6/2018. i wrote this about a year ago, in the middle of a freshman year straight out of hell where i was just not happy. i was figuring out my sexuality, in a high school i hated, my parents weren't listening to me, money was a huge fucking issue, i felt like i had no friends and. and i thought of killing myself. i was depressed, as i know now, i was really, really depressed. and i didnt say anything because id convinced my self that no one would care, that my job as a friend and daughter was to help the people around me, not get help. and i wont lie that this mentality is still... i still think it. that im the emotional support, the helper, the comedic relief. but im. id like to say im better. because though im the comedic relief, theres a reason they end up being some of the most loved characters. laughter is necessary to get through life, in my opinion. and now im in a new school, with my same old friends, but with more, with so many people i make laugh and that make me laugh on the daily. with a girlfriend that i really, really like. my grades arent the best and i still stress about school but im. im better. 
> 
> that was a hell of a paragraph but. if any of you feel like that, anybody reading this identify with any of this, please do something about it. call the national suicide hotline in your country, seek out a friend, or plain fucking dm me on [tumblr](http://mcclainnkogane.tumblr.com/) if thats not too weird because i honestly want to help. remember your worth. always remember your worth.


End file.
